Songstress she/her Posted October 17, 2011 Report Share Posted October 17, 2011 Hello all! I've been lurking around here for a week or so and thought I'd introduce myself for now, although I'll probably be easing myself into posting in the other forums as I'm still a couple of books short of having caught up on the available works of Brandon Sanderson. This is my third fantasy-lit-related forum membership, all under the same username, so if you happen to see something from Songstress at Westeros.org or Dragonmount.com, that would also be me. I'm not horribly active as a poster on either of them, but I spend entirely too much time reading threads that remotely interest me. And some that don't. I'm kind of compulsive about forum-reading. I hate to leave threads un-read. So... From the other welcome/introduction threads I've read, I expect I'll be asked how I came across Brandon's work. If you figure that (due to the above-mentioned Dragonmount.com membership) it was through his work on WoT, you'd be correct. Strangely enough, I didn't even start reading the Wheel of Time until a year after The Gathering Storm was released. Now entering Life Story mode! I've been a voracious reader since I was a kid, often coming home from the library with 10-15 books at a time. I read a bit of fantasy in my teens and twenties (I'm a bit beyond that now... but it's not polite to ask a woman her age, and suffice it to say I don't look OR act my age )... Of course I read Lord of the Rings, was a huge fan of the Narnia Chronicles as well as Madeleine L'Engle's Time Quartet, devoured Terry Brooks' Shannara series, and dabbled a bit in sci fi, but eventually began leaning more toward mystery, suspense, thrillers, and some horror (Stephen King, John Saul, Dean Koontz, etc.). Eventually I came back to fantasy in a roundabout way. Ten years ago I married a gamer geek, who had been playing a text MUD since college. I watched over his shoulder while he played for about 3 years before I finally caved in and rolled my own character on TorilMUD - a half-elf bard who was MADE OF WIN. After I got her to max level, I started trying to level a grey elf invoker, but found it a little more difficult because suddenly all of my hubby's friends who were my leveling helpers disappeared into the void that was known as (dun dun dun...) World of Warcraft. Eventually hubby was sucked in to WoW as well, and I tried to resist, but it only took 3 months of watching him play before I succumbed. We played WoW pretty casually for the most part, until I quit my full time job and had enough free time to devote myself to a semi-serious raiding guild. And then 3 years ago, my hubby suddenly passed away (aortic dissection at the age of 31), and in a fog of grief and depression, I spent even more time playing WoW, and every spare minute reading. Not being a Blizzard fangirl before I was dragged kicking and screaming into World of Warcraft, I found myself curious about the Warcraft backstory, and began picking up the Warcraft novels at the recommendation of one of my guildies. When I'd devoured all the available Warcraft books, I asked a few fantasy-lit enthusiasts in my guild for recommendations of what to read next. George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire was the immediate consensus, so I picked up books 1-4 and barely came up for air long enough to get a full time job again. You'd think these fantasy-lit friends were the ones who recommended WoT to me too, but they actually didn't -- I was giving a nutshell of the Game of Thrones plot to my massage therapist, and she was fascinated with the Stark children/direwolves connection and began to relate a bit of the Perrin storyline from the Eye of the World to me. Having gone as far as I could with ASoIaF, I tracked down a copy of EotW and decided to check it out. Before I'd finished that one, I knew I was hooked, so I started snagging copies of the rest, including The Gathering Storm. And right after I finished TGS, I bought a hardback copy of Towers of Midnight because I could not fathom waiting for the paperback (even though I'm OCD enough that I can't stand collecting a book series mixed between paperbacks and hardbacks). (As a side note, about the time GRRM's A Dance with Dragons was released, I decided to convert to e-books because of my extremely limited bookshelf space. With all the books I want to collect and re-read over and over, I just can't keep buying paperbacks, much less hardbacks.) When TOM was done, I sat there for about 10 minutes before deciding I must check out some of Brandon Sanderson's own work. So far I've read Elantris and the Mistborn trilogy (and the free preview chapters of Alloy of Law, of course). Warbreaker is on my Kindle as of yesterday and ready to read... by the time I'm done with that, I'll have picked up The Way of Kings. And then Alloy of Law... and then I'll be venturing into the other forum sections that are tempting me. Oh yeah. And after 5 years of World of Warcraft, I canceled my subscription in January of this year due to lack of time to play and a tight budget. Sometimes I still miss my moonkin. </life story mode> Let's see... Other bits and pieces about me. I go by Songstress because I love to sing, and have at times in my life been a fairly prolific writer of songs and poetry. Like many here on the forum, I also harbor an inkling of a desire to write fiction (although I really can't see myself writing fantasy - however much I like to read it). I am, unfortunately, really, really good at procrastinating, so I've never really finished anything of consequence. It's one of my talents. I currently work full time as a customer service rep at a mail order pharmacy call center... I play keyboard at my church... I have no children but two adorable kitties that act like toddlers most of the time... And I'm currently paving the road to hell with good intentions of losing weight, de-cluttering my packratted condo, and spending more time writing. So. Now that you all know MUCH MORE about me than you expected to... Anyone who's still awake have any questions? 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Link Von Kelsier Harvey he/him Posted October 17, 2011 Report Share Posted October 17, 2011 Welcome. Have a rep point. They're fun. You can probably get K-chan to give you a cookie too, if you ask nicely. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joe ST he/him Posted October 17, 2011 Report Share Posted October 17, 2011 Hey there Songstress that was quite the introduction, have another rep point. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Songstress she/her Posted October 17, 2011 Author Report Share Posted October 17, 2011 Welcome. Have a rep point. They're fun. You can probably get K-chan to give you a cookie too, if you ask nicely. I can haz cookie? *blinks eyes adorably* Thank you! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kuri Shardweaver he/him Posted October 17, 2011 Report Share Posted October 17, 2011 I'm not the purveyor of cookies. Hugs are my domain, so you get one of those instead! *hug!* Life story mode is a very entertaining mode, but I'm REALLY sorry to hear about your husband, even if you seem to have reached the light at the other end of that tunnel. You seem like a fascinating person to have around though, so I'm glad you joined up. *goes to help K-chan with that cookie* Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Songstress she/her Posted October 18, 2011 Author Report Share Posted October 18, 2011 I'm not the purveyor of cookies. Hugs are my domain, so you get one of those instead! *hug!* Awesome! Hugs are some of the bestest things ever!! (And less fattening than cookies!) Life story mode is a very entertaining mode, but I'm REALLY sorry to hear about your husband, even if you seem to have reached the light at the other end of that tunnel. You seem like a fascinating person to have around though, so I'm glad you joined up. *goes to help K-chan with that cookie* I'm glad to be here! Y'all* seem to be a wondrous sort of insane, just my style (* I'm not a southerner, but I have appropriated "y'all" as it is a very useful word to indicate the second person plural. Alternate word choices could include "youse" but... yeah, no.) 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zas678 he/him Posted October 19, 2011 Report Share Posted October 19, 2011 Hey Songstress! Welcome to 17th Shard! I understand you're feeling about forum-readings. However, I must recommend that you Stay Away from the General Theories thread until you've read all the books. But besides that, Welcome! I can't wait to hear some of your opinions! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Songstress she/her Posted October 20, 2011 Author Report Share Posted October 20, 2011 I understand you're feeling about forum-readings. However, I must recommend that you Stay Away from the General Theories thread until you've read all the books. Just from the forum description I figured that was the case... and then after obsessively reading introduction threads and seeing that advice repeated multiple times, the decision was reinforced. Thanks for the welcome! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Link Von Kelsier Harvey he/him Posted October 20, 2011 Report Share Posted October 20, 2011 Man, has anyone seen K-chan? It's weird for her to go this long without giving out a cookie. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KChan she/her Posted November 10, 2011 Report Share Posted November 10, 2011 I'm here! Sorry for the delay; school and Alloy release prep kept me away from the forums, so now I'm going through getting caught up on intro posts. Here is your belated cookie! Also, I gave you a rep point for spelling y'all correctly. Welcome to 17th Shard! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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